Barbell Shrugged - 111- What To Do After The CrossFit Open

Episode Date: April 2, 2014

This week on Barbell Shrug, we recap the 2014 CrossFit Games Open and tell you how you should train now. Hey, this is Rich Froning, you're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Alright, are we ready CTP? All right. Are we ready, CTP? You know it, baby. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bletzer here with Doug Larson and Chris Moore. Woo! With CTP behind the camera, of course.

All right. You asked for it. We're delivering. We're talking about the CrossFit Open. It just ended. People submitted their last scores on monday so two days ago a lot of uh hearts were broken uh some dreams crushed some people's dreams were crushed some people's dreams were made and uh we'll uh we're gonna talk we're gonna do

like a recap a summary of how the open went compare it to previous years and talk about how you uh might want to change your training after the open went compare it to previous years and talk about how you might want to change your training after the open because what you were doing during the open this probably should look a lot different right after before and after during yeah you know what i mean one of those words yeah yeah if your dream got crushed let's uncrush it and rebuild it yeah so do you guys see the leaderboard yet how How'd everybody do? I'm just pulling it up over here. I haven't looked at it yet. How did everybody do, Doug? Pretty good.

I saw Michelle Kinney got fifth. Good friend Michelle Kinney crushed it. In the world? Yeah, she fucking killed it. Here's the thing is a lot of people say, hey, because the open looks extremely different than the games, people go, well, what happens in the open is not indicative

of who's going to do well at the games. But at the same time... Rich Froning won and Jace like second and Michelle's up there. I don't think that's true. That does happen quite a bit. So the top people in the open definitely do really well at the games.

But if you look at the spread, just because you do good in the open does not mean you're going to do really well at regionals. The people who do good, but don't like sort of blow their load during it. And the people who do really good in it, but have nothing left for the actual competitions. I guess that's a big difference. I mean, well, in previous years, and it's not as true this year, in previous years, you didn't have to be very strong in order to do well in the Open.

There might have been one WOD that you might not place as well in if you weren't as strong, but overall, you'd do better. This year, there was a little more skill involved. Highly fatigued muscle-ups were introduced you know they introduced muscle-ups in a fatigued state before but this year uh people were a lot more fatigued by the time they got there uh the weights on the deadlifts got very heavy uh we i thought that was genius the way they put that together with with the deadlift box jump quad yeah they made it where it was light light at first but made it where everyone could do it because it was light at first, but made it where everyone could do it because it was light at first, but got heavy enough where really still the strongest athletes were the ones that were going to win.

The people that were more likely to go to regionals are pretty much the stronger athletes. And so it made the people that are going to go to regionals, since you were just saying that regionals is a little bit heavier, games is a little bit heavier, and whoever does well in the open doesn't necessarily do well at regionals because they're not quite the same competition. They're a little bit heavier and whoever does well in the open doesn't necessarily do well at regionals because they're not quite the same competition they're a little bit different i think scheduling it like that where where there's heavier weights in the open makes it where the stronger athletes are going to win the open and there's not a few people that are kind of like left out because they're strong they do they do well with the moderate weights but like the super lightweight high rep stuff which is what the open traditionally has been might have discluded some people that would do well at regionals but since the open isn't quite the same thing they didn't even make it to regionals yeah another thing they

changed this year that i thought was uh fantastic and i'm actually i just wish they had done it sooner which is they change it for the teams where uh and we've yet to see how this plays out was a great change yeah so for teams, they made it to where if someone's competing as an individual, their score is not going to contribute to the team's score. So I know our team missed it by one single point. We were 31st one point last year. One point, one place.

Last year. But there were plenty of teams that showed up that almost nobody on the team was the contributors to the scores that got them there. And so this year you're gonna see a lot less of that there's gonna be an interesting dynamic between like i could see like teams putting pressure on people who might want to go individuals to stay on team so they can keep that score and be in the top 30 uh you know i didn't even really look at how our team did during the open. You know, people would tell me, I'm like, oh, okay.

Well, the reason being is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where you're at because until people decide where they're going, individual or team, you know, you may be placed 80th, but that might put you in 20th place after all those teams have their individuals go individual. So I'm interested to see how that plays out as well but those are like two big changes it got heavy i mean last year there was a a progressive like snatch ladder where it got heavier but it's one of those things where i think people got so fatigued that like even some strong people didn't get to the heavier weights

it's not the same because it was not the same as a heavy deadlift yeah it was yeah it's not the same as a heavy deadlift that was an it's not the same as a heavy deadlift. That was an interesting sort of pacing challenge too. Like, to have that many reps in a deadlift to have it get that heavy

is very novel. With that particular workout and we, you know, everyone tries to and we gave out advice every Thursday night. We see it given.

We would give the best advice we could straight away. The longer you wait to give that advice, the better it's going to get. So, advice every Thursday night. We see it given, we would give the best advice we could as straight away. The longer you wait to give that advice, the better it's going to get. So like, you know, you have to accept that we were just trying to get something out that people are going to be able to use right out the gate. And sometimes, uh, and the advice, 95% of the advice was spot on. And sometimes it's the pacing that that's a hard advice to give until you've seen it done by 10 different types of athletes three times. So I remember it being Monday afternoon a lot of times.

It's Monday afternoon. We're standing around the gym. We go, oh, that's how you should pace that. Well, you don't know until you actually see it. And these are conversations we're having with games athletes. They're just now figuring out. They watch everyone else do it. They've done it once before. They're kind now figuring out. They've watched everyone else do it. They've done it once before.

They're kind of seeing how people tweaked it. And they're like, oh. And that deadlift specifically, you had to go blazing out the gates, really. I thought that you should pace it a little bit. But after watching some people do well, the people who do well tended to go blazing out the gates. They had to get those reps in quick.

For the men, who really crushed that? I remember reading that. The deadlift wall? Yeah, I remember reading that and I'm like, who in the shit is going to do 20 reps at 365 after all this? How is that possible? I didn't see very many people. I saw Rich got two that way, but I'm not sure

how many reps he did with it. He wasn't the best on that one. I can pull up the leaderboard right now. They're definitely some crosswords now with Monster and Deadlifts. I knew somebody would do really well. Is that week two? Deadlift was week three. Week three. Austin Mallio won.

He got 182. What was the rep range when the 365 Deadlift started? Anybody know? CTP? You made it to like 315, right? 315 reps. No, no. i got to 315 deadlifts um yeah actually on the pacing front like i thought the 275 deadlifts were going to take more out of me than they did yeah and uh so i wasn't i wasn't doing touch and go on the on the 275s throughout like the middle of that set i did some of the start and then i kind of paced it

through the middle and then i did touch and go for like the last well i did actually you know i did touch and go for the last five of that set i remember specifically because i walked away to the box and they were like no no no go back here on the wrong i was on the wrong rep pattern right and so i walked back to the bar did touch go for five did my step ups and then i was i was pretty close to being out of time and so i did touch and go for a set of eight with 315 and i walked away not really that tired after doing a touch and go for a set of eight and i i was like shit i should have gone faster on the 275s i thought that was going to wreck me and i and i felt great yeah so i i should have gone faster kind of to your point you're i think you're totally

right about that most people didn't go fast enough out of the gate and i certainly didn't throughout the middle of the workout i saw guys that weren't as strong as you on a one rep max get a similar score and it's because they went hard out the gate that definitely didn't throughout the middle of the workout. Because I saw guys that weren't as strong as you on a one rep max get a similar score. And it's because they went hard out the gate. They definitely didn't look as good as you did by the time they got to those 315s. I saw a few nasty deadlifts. I still would, seeing that deadlift,

there's no way you shouldn't have started conservative. With the very real fear that your back was going to be blowing up fucking pieces by the end of that. It's not unreasonable to say, paste this out of the gate. Yeah, everybody didn't look bad, but I saw some bad ones.

There were some that were worse than others. And then I know a lot of athletes that were like, oh, I felt bad. And I was like, you didn't look bad at all. And then some athletes that didn't comment at all

looked terrible right out the gate. It's probably one of the first years where I said to myself, I should have maybe participated as a competitor in this. Especially the deadlift one. I probably could have done really well. You totally could have done that.

Yeah. I won't use the word crush, but I probably would have done all right at it. Yeah. That last one, I probably would have maybe exceeded an hour. I think I saw some hour times for 14 14 5 was it the one with the last one it was for time we all got caught off guard with that one yeah so a small change every year it's been very similar it's five weeks long i think the one year there was a technical snafu and that's why they made it six uh but it's always been five workouts uh we now have like four years of historical data on the open so it's it's there

are now trends i'd say this year we uh there was some prediction going on and and there were trends because there's three years of data but now there's like uh the trends are even stronger now for sure most of it was the same the vast majority of it was the same there was a few little curve balls thrown in there the row obviously was a curve ball nobody expected the rower because there's never been a rower i'd be bored to tears no one expects the rower if there was no curve ball i'd be i would actually hate it yeah i love that there was curve balls no i mean that's the reputation you like you never know what the workouts are going to be for the most part it wouldn't be fun if you didn't go into it knowing

there'd be something that would really scare you you want to be you can't just be and it's open it can't be all predictable some of it has been still like oh fucking shit how am i possibly going to do that that's what makes it fun to compete so doug made some predictions which we were all in agreement over like laid it all out and then i'm pretty sure that's why dave castro changed the wads is because most must have been listening to this podcast he's like i need to i need to screw doug screw Doug over I hate that guy I'm putting a rower in there he made that decision where it's not all amraps anymore he made a decision right after he picked out his graphic tees yeah but for the most part it really was pretty consistent with with the past years it was mostly amraps he threw he threw the rounds for time and there at the very end which I which

I thought was totally cool. The rower, nobody expected, but the rest of the movements were pretty much what we thought. It was very consistent with years past. It was for the most part, all the major barbell movements and then the same eight or so bodyweight or gymnastics movements. When it got to 214.5, we were like, well, there's only really two movements left. Everyone knew it was going to be burpees and thrusters. That's really all we hadn't done yet.

My prediction for that WOD, for the record, it's too late to say it now. I don't think you know how predictions work, dude. My prediction for the past. I would say on Wednesday, after much discussion with other people and hearing other people's predictions, I thought that it was going to be thrusters and burpees ascending reps is what I thought it was going to be. I thought there was going to be an AMRAP. But yeah, descending reps and no time cap.

I was really pleased with that. That sounds like a lot more fun. Yeah. And for all the people that got to 14.5 and it was like their first year to do the open they were like man i don't know if i'm gonna make it through it like i've done all four like hoping they can do like everything that's required in in part five and and they're thinking man like i hope it's like something that's not too hard but kind of hard so i can like feel good about myself and the fact that i finished the whole open and then they heard rounds for time and they were like

holy shit that's heavy for me and that's gonna take me an hour and i'm gonna rounds for time and they were like, holy shit, that's heavy for me and that's going to take me an hour and I'm going to want to quit. And then they do it anyway. Say what? Watching people at the gym do that workout was like, no one looked like it was the most depressing scene on the planet.

Nobody looked like they were having fun. Just getting through it. I actually watched that one at Seal Fit in Encinitas, California on Friday morning. Went there and was it Ashley,

the wife? Yeah. She did it alongside two other athletes and it was, it was, yeah, I could tell it was tough.

It was tough. Yeah. I didn't do it as prescribed. I did it. I did front squats and burpees, but it was still nasty.

If you don't know this, Doug really can't go overhead with a barbell, and neither can I, and that's why we didn't participate. I can. I can go overhead. It's pretty ugly, but I can still. Yeah, I don't do much overhead work after a shoulder surgery. That still bugs me quite a bit, but front squats are fine. So I did front squats and burpees, and I had a great time doing it.

I got done. I was obviously super tired, but, but it was, it was fun the whole time and it didn't, didn't wreck me. I didn't walk outside and throw up. I felt pretty good afterward. Yeah.

Cause you're a machine. The 12 minutes, I think Doug Larson, the machine. So you watched the wife do it in San Diego or whatever, as you're like, Oh, come on,

this looks hard to eat in like a chorizo burrito and saying, come on, baby, you can do this shit. Yeah, pretty much no yeah yeah well for me i had a surfing session lined up later that day and i uh wanted to save all my energy for the waves you're gonna do as i say not as i do kind of state in life right now

come on this is what you told you to do for the open i'm gonna go surf and tacos well yeah i mean when you can't compete the whole open due to an injury it's kind of like well I'll just uh I'll just go do other things well there you go yeah and the way you've been kind of bouncing back and forth between being injured and performing really well like you'll you'll be injured like you like you'll be limping around and then you'll pr and then you'll be injured again and then you'll pr it's like you're kind of going back and forth when when I'm healthy um i'm uh doing really well athletically uh and then yeah yeah i think it's just uh you know years and years of abuse you've been pulling some big cleans lately what have you been cleaning you've been pulling them high too i know my timing's off yeah i'm pulling too high and they're too

high they're crashing on you but yeah close to 300 pounds like i'm working my way back up so and what are you what are you weighing right now? Like one 62, one 63. I'm a little heavy. I've been weighing like one 85. Oh, you're so huge. Last time I weighed one 85.

Let me see. Probably like in sixth grade. Last time I was that light. Yeah. But I'm serious. Well, a year ago I was cleaning over 300 pounds. I was cleaning,

jerking 300 pounds and snatching like two 60. And I was at, that was at one 69 snatching like two 60. And I was at, that was at one 69. So that's why I say I'm heavy compared to like previous lifts. So like, I feel strong, but I'm also a little bit heavier than I was in the past. If you're looking at like legitimate PRS,

let's get back on. Let's stop talking about me. Jesus. First time you've ever said that. Don't call me Jesus. Oh geez. All right. So, uh, I'm getting uncomfortable over here first time you've ever said that don't call me Jesus oh geez alright so take a break real quick yeah

let's take a break when we come back we'll talk about I want to talk about the difference between open regionals games and then talk about especially if you did not

qualify for regionals which is going to be the majority of the population if you're in the broken dream crew what do you do how do you fix how do you turn this ship right around if in the broken dream crew, what do you do? How do you fix it? How do you turn this ship right around?

If your heart is broken right now, what should you be doing for training? That's what we're going to talk about. Come back after the break. We're going to announce 14.6. You are now listening to The Break

on Barbell Shrugged. Barbell Shrugged. Break, girl. Barbell Shrugged Podcast Break. Behind the scenes. We talk politics and recipes are we gonna keep this audio for for every break we take every break every break yeah if you're

watching the video version right now you'd be watching a technique wad isn't that right though but they could be hearing this for like the hundredth time because we're gonna use it every time i think so sounds like a bad idea watching technique quad would be way cooler than listening to this week ass break so you should go to barbell shrug dot com so you can watch the videos. Seeing is believing. Seeing is cooler. And then CPP also edits in really cool videos. And maybe some porn.

No, there probably won't be any porn. CTP, keep the porn in there. People are going to want to see it. Seriously, you should start watching the video version. 3, 2, 1. And we're back. Was that good enough? Well done.

You prepare for that? My whole life, Doug. It was his last day at work today. I know. It was. Your last day at work. We surprised you with Modelo's. I got out to my Jeep after leaving my corporate utilitarian hovel area workstation. And I get out there and I go, oh, shit, there's a beer in my seat. What kind soul? I recognize that.

It's like the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when the Indian breaks out of the thing and runs for the hills. And the guy stands up in the bed clapping. He got away. I bought somebody in the office that just left that beer. That's a great movie, by the way. You for the hills. There's that. And like the guy stands up in the beds, like clapping, he got away about somebody in the office. I just left that beard. Like that's a great movie. You go, you son of a bitch, go for your freedom.

But then I saw my brothers out there go shit. It was a, it was a very nice moment. I'm actually really sad. I didn't get to make it. I was in flight at the time, but yeah, Doug and CTP made it out.

You're a free man. Yeah. I guess the message today is you might be scared as shit to make a decision but if you fucking believe it and you're going to chase your passion you got to take a step towards what is going to make you happy if you do that if you have faith in that good shit is going to happen if you don't follow barbell budo or listen to chris's solo podcast you should for one um and if you don't you may not know know that he just quit the big corporate gig to go not to another corporate gig

but to be an entrepreneur and work for himself. And you did it at a crazy time with a baby on the way within weeks. Yeah, I mean Here's the thing Say what?

No, baby number two. He's already taken care of one. I was like, he's already taking care of one. I was like, holy shit, twins. People, people look at you like a crazy asshole for making such a decision. And I tell,

yeah, it's understandable, but it's just like when you have a decision to have a kid, like the golden rule is that if you're waiting for the right time, it will never fucking come. That's that. And I believe that'd be true about everything in your life. If you're scared, you can't look at it as a bad thing you can't let it delay you because it's

a fuel for you going forward and achieving what you want to achieve and you got to realize that if there's something you want to do and you don't fuck it's the right time that's a fucking illusion it's never gonna feel that way it's kind of like the people always wait for the stars to align they tend not to align until they retire. They're like 65. Oh, now I'll go see the world. It's like, what? I had my boss. You can barely make it up those steps.

I made that decision. I made that decision when I had a discussion with one of my bosses or whatever. He's like, you know what? I can appreciate what you're doing. It's a bold move. It's brave.

If I have any regrets, I'd say I wish I went into business for myself. But you know, I've got seven more years. I've got to survive this. And when I'm 65 or so, maybe I'll go back and do what I want.

I go, Holy fuck. And there's a guy that was like, that like, that was a nail in the coffin. I was like, I had this, I had a tremor of fear come up. Like, Holy shit, man. And this is a guy with a lot of money. This guy has no concerns, but he's going to carry that. And it's going to, when you're 70 years old or so, and you have that, the knowledge that you could have taken a shot at something unknown,

but glorious and beautiful and fulfilling when you're in your thirties, you don't, you don't want to carry that in your grave, man. You do not want that on you. So if there's somebody in the audience who goes, you know what? There's something I really need to do.

I feel it, but it doesn't feel like the right time. At the very least, you need to really think about how you're going to make it happen really soon. Cause it's going to, that's going to haunt your fucking ass to the grave. Make it happen, baby. I actually had one of my buddies in the Navy.

He just got selected for chief. So that's a big deal to make a jump from. That's the official title? Chief? Yeah. That's awesome. That's a rank. So he got selected for chief. You look so confused. Why have there been no fucking army or anything? Making chief is a big deal in the Navy.

He felt like it was affecting his decision on whether he should get out of the Navy. He's not scheduled to get out for a while, but he's playing around with all these different ideas. I was like, the rank you make in the Navy should have nothing to do with

deciding whether you get out or not. You got to think about what you want your life to be about the time who are the people you want to spend time with and if it's other sailors you want to spend all your time with and that's what you want to do there's been more time with sailors awesome then then you should do that but if you know you want to spend some time with people who may not be in the military and you want to spend some more time with your family and so on and so forth, maybe you should look at something else. I will say this.

For people in the audience, if your expectation is, well, I'm not really satisfied with what I'm doing now. And this goes for training too, man. If you think, I'm not having a good time, but if I get to the next PR, the next stage, the next accomplishment, the next level up in the office building, then I'll probably, this will go away and I'll feel really good.

You should go, CTP or not, you should go watch that Alan Watts video on music and see the trap that that is. There are good reasons to chase things, but once you get a taste and it's not working for you, you realize that maybe it's an illusion and you need to reconsider what you're chasing for. It's something that'll just blow your mind.

How do I find this? YouTube, Alan Watts. Alan Watts and music, and it'll blow your frigging mind. How do I find this? YouTube. YouTube, Alan Watts. Alan Watts and music, and it'll blow your frigging mind. The point being that nobody listens to music in a rush to get to the last note as if the ending was the point of the song. The point is that you play a song,

you dance along while the music's playing. That's how you should live your life. Yeah, sometimes you're sad when the song is over. That's true. And then you hit repeat. It was a good video. CTP showed That's true. And then you hit repeat. Yeah. It was a good video. CTP showed me it earlier.

Yeah, blow your mind. Yeah, I want to cover this. We've covered this in previous shows before, but I just want to recap since people tend to miss things sometimes. But the open tends to be lighter, and then it's predictable. It's going to be between 5 and 20 minutes long this year it was much shorter yeah per workout uh at regionals it tends to be the heaviest and at the games you see the highest more gymnastics random skills but they've actually

uh people have ran the data uh the games just not as heavy as regionals but the gymnastics skills are uh more prominent and then uh But the gymnastics skills are more prominent. And then the random skills like hitting things with sledgehammers and whatnot, you know, whatever. Which is awesome. It's much more novelty in the games. How do you work in explosions into the games? Like you fucking hit something with a sledgehammer

and something just explodes. I think Dave could probably figure that out. That is one thing I really enjoy about the games is that wild randomness thing. That oh shit moment we gotta do what the fittest guys in the world you can take on any challenge go oh shit man like you finally get to see them scared of something yeah i think i think that's still the biggest thing for a lot of those guys is the water you know if they have to swim because they're all they're also damn dense and muscular or a lot of them just don't practice being in the water. Maybe a little bit of both.

That time I saw, what's his name? Shit, the strong man from CrossFit. Rob Orlando. Sorry, Rob. But Rob getting out in the open water, I almost fucking died out there. I go, oh shit, man. Because as fat as I am,

I know the density problem when you get in the water. I can walk across the bottom of a pool. So I know how bad I would be out in the middle of the water trying to do that race. So Chris, you made on our last 14.5 preparation video for strategies and hot tips.

You went through the stages of grief of not making it to regionals. I was thoroughly entertained by that. And did you see my titty that everybody pointed out on Instagram? CTP put that, showed me that picture like that showed me a picture like oh man you think that's cool I think it's great not seeing the titty and I see 15 baloney titty comments on the fucking Instagram hey man the shirt was pushing it up anybody in this room if I take this t-shirt and I shove it up on your tit it's gonna look like you had a bitch tit how many hashtag bitch tit hashtags i

see fucking hey man my favorite one was it says hot tips and then the one right below it said hot nips yeah fucking hell this last time i'm gonna do this for you i'm gonna get a tank top on i'm gonna i'm gonna squeeze my bus together here and i'm gonna i'm gonna do a titty shot just just for you so that you know uh to make you feel better. I'll be in the same boat. You know what I'm saying? Thank you. But still, I had to jump in a boat first.

That's not the funnest job to have. But on the video, that slow motion rip looks like what I envisioned the pic should be. Epic slow motion roar, Hulk Hogan style. So you were talking about accepting your fate, not going to regionals, maybe having a little fun what were the what was it it was like

you start off very excited you get a little frustrated as reality sets in what was the number three it goes through there's a little bit of a excitement anxiety

frustration there's excitement anxiety when you get on the toilet you have your pre-wad poops which is a very real thing especially if you combine it with a little coffee

and things get unsettled then frustration like oh shit this is pretty tough and then you look at rich like i don't know if this is the year i beat rich turns out it's never the year you beat right uh denial like no shit man i can still do this no no no i mean i'm like last in my region out of 18 000 people but you know i'm pretty good at burpees then at desperation point then the acceptance said okay it's not gonna work this year i should maybe do something different yeah which i try to be actually we try to be a little serious in that point so you know it's probably a good time like maybe get much stronger than you are now for instance yeah maybe maybe look at what motivates you intrinsically so the trying to compete and do well is a very extrinsic thing

you're comparing yourself to others you're not looking at how you've improved because you're not hitting workouts that you've done before and you're not hitting benchmarks. You're doing a workout and then you're seeing how you did compared to other people. It's a very extrinsic, motivational thing.

And I think that can be good for a period of time, but it's a really great way to burn out. And that's what, now's the time like get back to what you find important and what you may be what you specifically need for yourself that's what got me out of piloting in the end is that and like i'm sure we could talk with aj about this a couple weeks when when's aj coming to town uh next weekend yeah so yeah he was in a similar boat aj will be here he'll be on the show next week. So next week should be AJ Roberts.

When you're driven only by how you stack up to others and driven only by a goal that is like to make it to a certain event, it's great, but it's just like any other thing in your life where you're being driven by something external for yourself. It's great, but if you don't balance it out with at least a period of recovery like in an off season and return focus to you and what makes you happy, what makes you satisfied, what you need to work and for you to be satisfied with your training you're gonna burn out and plateau way sooner than you otherwise would you gotta have time to reflect and get

introspective one of the things one of the things the the best ever performed on weightlifting is when i didn't worry about how anyone else did in the competition at all. Exactly. I went, I went to, you know, I peaked for a competition and I was only worried about hitting the numbers. I wanted to hit for me and for personal reasons. And I didn't even look at the scoreboard or leaderboard. It was days later to find out where I, where I ranked in that competition.

Once those habits, I mean, I think we all had the most fun competing that day too. Once the habits shift, I'm like, what's that guy doing? How can I do that? How can I compare it?

Once it shifts to what do I need to do? What's my next best step? Uh, how can I best prepare and set my mindset? Once you start building basic habits day to day, your results is sort of just happen. You get stronger. Well,

I even haven't really worry about it. You do well at a meet cause you're not so obsessed about everything you're thinking about what you need to do to get ready for the meet yeah this is one of the best things about weightlifting powerlifting cross all these sports where you're competing basically against yourself and then other people happen to be there also competing against themselves and then everyone's just compared in the end and there's a first place second place where you can go out there and do your best lose the competition but walk away knowing you did better than you've ever done before and probably be pretty happy with yourself.

Other sports, you could do your best and still be an MMA fighter or whatever. You could do the best you've ever done and still walk out of there looking stupid. The other guy could make you look like the worst you've ever been because he's that much better than you. The greatest joy. Fighting Anderson Silva as Forrest Griffin would be. That the probably the best example that there ever could be forrest griffin one of the best fighters in the whole world i thought i was really foolish in front of everybody only because he was being compared to the next best person in the world yeah and he ran out of

the ring totally embarrassed yeah i had a stage i had a stage in power thing where obviously it becomes about well i'm really strong but fuck i'm not as strong as the strongest guy in the world, and how can I get there? Nothing's ever good enough, and you get sort of lost. I know people are feeling that about the opener regions. They'll go, well, I did much better than last year, but fuck, I got 65th out of whatever, or I got 100th, and that's just not good enough. Well, you lose track of what is so great about a barbell.

The reason why CrossFit's great and why crossfit's great and while weightlifting is great while powerlifting is great is because it's the single best like self-calibrating sort of it's a state of mindfulness when you get in the gym and you get so engrossed in what you're doing you think about the reps you're having such a good time and you forget about everything else in the world for that hour and you leave better than you were restored that's what it should be and for a lot of people you get so consumed about your performance and how the programming needs to be fancy or whatever the fuck and you forget that it becomes something other than what it should be it becomes an additional stress in your life i think uh for for me personally i think there's gonna vary this does vary from person to person uh you know the most satisfying thing for me is seeing my back squat go up my snatch clean and

jerk those are the things that when I hit PRs on those, I'm very, very pleased. And in competition or not. And yeah, I'm only comparing myself to myself. It's just like me in the barbell. And as I've gotten older, I've done a lot less looking around and just kind of looking more to just what I do.

And that's where I've found the most success and fulfillment at the same time. So that's what I find and that's where I've like found the most you know success and and fulfillment at the same time so I you know that's that's what I find to be fun so after like maybe competing and stuff that's not that that's where I want to gravitate towards is like now I'm going to do that for a period of time to kind of rejuvenate it's actually like uh exercise that's for rejuvenation and I think that that's what most people should do now right after the open the worst thing you could do is probably roll into some programming uh that will continue to beat you down that will just like tired now yeah that's like oh i gotta start preparing like the day after spend a couple weeks uh you know doing what's fun go paddle boarding go for jogs in the park go play some ultimate frisbee uh don't do any

pull-ups uh you know do some stuff that you find rejuvenating the class so you're gonna train basically for fun for a couple weeks let your body heal and then kind of as you're easing your way back into more intense training what what should we be doing basically that that we haven't done in a while to like show our weaknesses and let our shoulders get some work without continuing to beat them up? The overhead, or excuse me, the open is a lot of overhead stuff. Should we be doing kind of more shoulder friendly stuff as we're easing back into training or what are your thoughts on that? I mean, for, you know, so the psychological perspective, make training fun again. So

figure out what it is that makes it fun. And then there's some things you want to avoid i remember last year uh we had an athlete right after the uh thing was right after the open yeah and she uh i was like all right for the next two weeks i'm not programming anything do what you want to do for fun and uh what she did was she went and found another program that was preparing people for regionals and then she's what i think is fun and then she definitely wasn't having fun she was kind of you know still trying to push it for whatever biggest mistake on herself yeah it's the biggest single mistake people are going to make and so i said that and i said i said specifically do whatever you want but don't do pull-ups. Don't go overhead.

And she ended up really messing up her shoulder. Like her shoulder, like started really bothering her. And I was like, I was like, cause she went into a program that was prepping people for regionals where they were doing a lot of high rep pull-ups, chest bar pull-ups, stuff like that. And I was like, that is exactly what you should not have done. But you know, I don't think I had to say anything at that point. So yeah. A unilateral movement.

So I'm a big fan of a lot of horizontal pulling first. So a lot of rows, barbell rows, dumbbell rows, kettlebell rows, any type of row. I do like the crossover symmetry stuff. If you're not already using that, check out crossover symmetry dot com. I'm a fan of that too. I've been doing that in the garage every day. They have a really cool system for shoulder health. If you're not already doing something to keep your shoulders healthy,

check that out. It's really good stuff. We have one in the gym, and I use the shit out of it all the time. You use it every day. It makes my shoulders feel a lot better. That's a really good thing to do. So I like a lot of horizontal pulling, rows, barbell rows, anything. And I'm also a big fan of the unilateral movements.

So you've been doing a lot of bilateral stuff uh you've been doing a lot of squatting pressing with barbells uh but break it up uh do get some dumbbells you know with even if you're going to do them at the same time just having each hand being separate you know not connected to the same object can be really good uh and then doing a lot of lunges rear rear foot elevated split squats, look it up. I think we have a technique what on that? Oh, no. We do. Yeah.

Throw in some single leg stuff. Give your knees a break. So, you know, stay away from a lot of squatting. If you do do squats, do some tempo squats or something like that. You know, which, by the way, the slow down and pause squats is probably one of the most awesome things anybody can do to probably feel a lot better squatting and also make your squat a lot better really quick yeah for at least a month i would stay away from any like like super heavy squatting uh just do tempos do uh unless you're preparing for regionals these

are for people who aren't preparing for regionals that That's for the O. You got to stay strong if you're going to regionals. Yeah, so, you know, tempo squats, single leg squats, single arm presses, single arm rows. Also like step ups. Yeah, step ups. So yeah,

not just split squats, but yeah, step ups. Hardest thing you'll ever, don't do this because I just told you not to do overhead stuff, but try at one point like overhead step ups.

It's deceivingly hard holding a weight over your head you know maybe i shouldn't even have suggested that there's gonna be people submitting videos if you get hurt dumbbell or kettlebell step-ups are fine front rack step-ups i like those a lot too yeah yep putting a bar on your back nothing wrong with that man yeah so a lot of single leg stuff single arm stuff uh get back to some like simple core movements make some leg raises that aren't toes the bar uh you know uh farmers carries i like all the strongman stuff in the early off season all the total body strongman stuff you said farmers carry a second ago super great for your heavy keg carries and stone carries

it's very similar to horizontal pulling because you're basically pulling something in especially if you carry a keg lengthwise like this you just reach around and pull it in and walk like that we do that or we used to do that rather a lot with our with our high school athletes especially when i was in high school right uh yoke walks and things like that maybe not super heavy right off the bat if you're trying to let your your back and your your knees and whatnot rest but i just like the total body strongman stuff. Turkish get-ups are another one that I like to do, especially right out of the off-season. It is overhead, but it's not necessarily heavy,

if you choose not to do it heavy. It's not putting your shoulders in a – it's not like forcing your shoulders into a weird position. Yeah, most people use Turkish get-ups for shoulder health specifically. So if you don't have any shoulder problems and you have good overhead range of motion and you want to do some overhead stuff without beating your shoulders up too much, then Turkish get-ups are shoulder health specifically. So if you don't have any shoulder problems and you have good overhead range of motion and you want to do some overhead stuff without beating your shoulders up too much,

then Turkish get-ups are a great option. There's a lot of fun stuff that you can move pretty good amounts of weight for a pretty good amount of time but not get too beat up and it's all very novel. Strongman stuff is just a great way to prepare yourself for the next wave

of training coming later on. Yeah, I would just avoid anything you saw in the open for at least two weeks. I was going to say this point earlier, but I think people's greatest fear is that holy shit, if I work on strength or if I take a break, all my progress will just fucking vanish like an ethereal

vapor and I'll be fucking worthless and I'll never be able to compete again. Therefore, I got to jump right back into hardcore now and keep that up until next fucking February. It just can't be. Even watch people like Ilyan Ilyov, the weightlifter. Best weightlifter in the fucking February. And I just can't be even watch like people like, like Ilya Nelyev, the weightlifter guy,

best way out there in the fucking world took like a year off and didn't do anything. And now he's slowly building back. The point being is if the, the, the harder you chase after something, you don't take a break. You cannot,

you cannot keep it up and you cannot expect next year to be able to somehow improve. You'll be burned out before you get to the fall. I already did. Surfing and yoga for a year. Look at you. No, not me. I said him. PRs.

Are you talking about Ilya? I think it's you. No, no, no. I was talking about Ilya. Yeah, but the point being is you do have- When I take a break for a year, that's what I'll do. The benefit from the rest is way more beneficial than keeping on training. One is sustainable and one is not.

You need to give yourself a break so you can push harder on the back end and make the improvement. Yeah, so one thing I want to talk about for planning for the whole year is I would find that one competition that you want to peak for next. So, but one a year. Pick one, and for most people, it's going to be the Open again. They want to do really well there. And then pick two more competitions, two or three more competitions you're going to do throughout the

year so try to do a competition every three or four months uh but don't don't specifically train just for that you want to peak throughout the year but have small peaks think about as practice for competition we made that point on on one of the, we had said get stronger at the end of the hot tips video as one actual useful point. Yeah. The second one being if you got a benefit out of all these tips and everything, great. But one thing you need to do for yourself

is just get more practice. So if you can rest a bit, then pick a couple of competitions. Don't get too intense about how well you do, but do some variety. Practice for yourself what it's going to take for you to have a better pace and a better strategy practice the act

of competing and having fun and get used to it and treat it as practice don't put too much pressure on yourself to be the best you can be

at that competition and be better than other people it's like a oh sorry I was going to say it's like a skill in itself because like

I used to play guitar in bands and stuff like when you're chilling oh weren't you so cool CTP yeah you know you know how it goes but i was gonna say he is pretty good at the guitar when you're when you're in the band room practicing and playing and stuff is one thing it's like it's cool and then you go to the stage for your first time it's like there's just so many things you weren't thinking about so just getting in the practice of going to a competition it's like it's not even about your workout ability it's about like you

have to get good. Hey, you got a shit. What are you going to do? You got to, you need experience, man. It reminds you of all the things that you have been neglecting. Number one.

And then it also cues you into all the things that you wouldn't even have known to think about unless you compete frequently or you forget about if you don't compete. Competing is like a skill in itself.

It really is. You get a chance to see people who are really awesome. How do they, what do they do before to rest, to recover? How do they pack their food? How do they warm up? When do they warm up? And then ignore all that and start your own shit. No, I'm saying, but you get to see, you get to see how people are going about it.

If you have no fucking clue, you got to start somewhere. Yeah. Another thing. Oh, that guy's got a shake and I've got a bologna sandwich. Maybe I shouldn't have a bologna sandwich before I do this what? I love bologna, though. Big bologna is going to come after this. Nothing I was going to say.

In the offseason, especially very early offseason, right after you have gotten done competing, you've just built up a bunch of volume. You've just been getting. Come on, Doug. I know. So unprofessional. That was my go-to-bed alarm. It's too late.

We need to get out of here. And CTP needs to edit this show. This is the latest we've ever done a fucking show. I know. So that was my go to bed alarm. It's too late. We need to get out of here. Yeah. And CTP needs to edit the show. We've ever done a fucking show. I know it really is. It is Tuesday night late and CTP has to edit this and have it posted in like 12 hours. You're going to be up all night. Less than 12 hours. Great spring, baby.

That's right. So anyway, early off season, you've just done a bunch of volume leading up to whatever competition you were doing. In this case, we just got done with the open. Again, in this case, it's been five weeks grinding through a very rough competition. So coming out of the open, like Mike said, focus on intrinsic motivations, focus on doing things that you enjoy.

But another thing that I think you should focus on is really taking the quality of your movement into consideration. Not doing high volume, not doing, not focusing on quantity, but really focusing on quality. We always say to focus on good technique and whatnot, and that that'll never go away. But we all know that during competitions, you're not at a hundred percent perfect technique. There's a little bit of slop in there. Even, you know, even if you're really, really good about techniques, still you will break down a little bit

if you are really pushing it. So get away from that. Get away from the slop. Perfect technique, high quality reps. You can focus on doing, even if you're doing like chest to bar pull-ups, maybe just do a set of five and do it just absolutely completely perfect. And you're not even tired when you got done. You weren't trying to get in shape. You were practicing doing something perfect. And so that's okay to do something like every minute on a minute for, for something that's, you know, a third or a fourth or a fifth of what you could do in an AMRAP set. So if you could do 50 chest to bar pull-ups in a row, maybe do sets of 10 and you know that there's no way you're going to even

get tired. Your movement quality isn't going to suffer at all. you can work on doing perfect super crisp perfect reps and that becomes like your body's default setting yeah it's doing it perfect yeah i was very very fortunate growing up that i was like really never allowed to do anything wrong like really really really never allowed to do anything shows now i mean your deadlifts look fucking perfect on that wad you do yeah like i don't know what it feels like to round my back on deadlifts because i've never ever done it i can show you doug i remember i've never been allowed to i see it all the time let's front squat together i mean like if i start to round my back i just drop i just don't do a rep right i'm just not i'm not not like i you know i'm so so good about anything that i that i can't run my back like it can't happen i just won't pull

it if that's the case but But even when I get tired, my back doesn't round basically ever. It's programmed in your nervous system. I was never allowed to because I was taught quality, quality, quality every time. And if my back ever rounded ever, like I was yelled at and I had to drop the bar. But now I slap you with a bamboo pole.

When Doug was first introduced to CrossFit, his mind was blown. He was like, what is happening? It took like years to like accept that this is a competition. was first introduced to crossfit his mind was blown he was like what is happening it's like it took like years to like accept that this is a competition like and this is where you got to have that separation is you just spent five weeks competing where slop is almost encouraged yeah but here's the thing is uh you're putting for every sloppy rep you do you're doing something that's not optimal for your joints and those that connective tissue is breaking do you're doing something that's not optimal for your joints and those that connective tissue is breaking down you're charging credit and you've got a you've got if you just

keep doing that you're eventually going to break and if you know we talked to kelly starrett about this and he talks about that mobility watt and stuff like that is you know you you can't just keep on moving bad it may not hurt you today you go oh you know i rounded today or my shoulder didn't move uh the way it didn't initiate the movement like it was supposed to and you know my pull-up i still get my chest at a bar you know just getting from the beginning of the movement to the end of the movement is not you know a good standard for training it's a good standard for when you're testing when you're competing but yeah you got to get back and get those, not just movement patterns,

but it's also letting the tissue move the way it was intended so it doesn't break down and end up with a tear. You got to pay off all that debt. The biggest thing I started noticing in powerlifting was that to move the max weight at any cost, by the time you get to 40, 45, you got a big debt to pay off in terms of all those years of cutting corners in

order to make the weight happen you didn't go back and read like the biggest thing i've done to make myself stronger in these recent years is not to keep pushing in the direction i was pushing it was to go back and learn a better vertical squat posture and get my ankles moving better and once i was able to do that the mechanics then supported a new new paths of strength yeah that goes into like one of our next points which is progressions like like even if you can do handstand push-ups or muscle-ups or something like that it might be good to like go back and there's you know there's muscle-up progressions there's things you need to do to get better muscle-ups that aren't muscle-ups and even if you can do plenty of muscle-ups go back and do those progression exercises to build up strength

in those positions that you know are aren't that aren't pushing you into those sloppy reps. So don't be afraid to back up right now. This is the time to back up. You're not going to want to back up when it gets close to competition. Right. We've got to call it something. So move back on the progression a little bit. It's okay.

That's where Chris is seeing most of his results right now is moving back on the progression of some of these powerlifting movements. We got to call it something other than movement. We got to call it something fancy, Doug. Not backing up and doing things over again, but something buzzy. The thing I realize is that you can push off in a direction and get really good at a certain thing. You go off and you get so good, you tweak things to squeeze the most progress out of a lift, and you get to the far end of a continuum, but then what do you need most to get that moving again?

Not more of the same intense things. It's like for you to go back and, quote, be a beginner and to reassess mechanics is the best thing you can do for more performance. It's not like you're stepping back and redoing something. It's the wrong way to think about it. This is the path to getting more strength out of the same movement. And when you go back and get things complicated again, try new things, you can push to new ground. You can't just keep going off in that same direction. If you have something that's not moving, right. If you have a technique limitation, going back and fixing that and progressing again can give you more performance, right?

Technique is, is position specific. So if you need to scale back for some reason in order to do something through a truly full range of motion, like if you do kipping pull-ups and every time you do it, you go like this and you try to just barely stick your chin over the bar and you never actually pull under your chin with a totally neutral neck or you can't hit chest to bar, doing more and more bad reps where you just barely get your chin over the bar and now you go from being able to do 15 in a row to 20 in a row to 25 in a row won't necessarily make you better at doing more perfect reps and so yeah scaling back in some way whether you're just doing whether you're doing like with a light band and you're kipping and you're getting all the way through that that full range of motion

you're doing the rep now technically correct is really the best way to be able to do it technically correct with with full weight or full body weight in that case later on so down like great cook says like you never want to add fitness to dysfunction because if you're doing something not functionally correct if you're doing if you have a dysfunctional movement which basically means you have bad technique even if it's not horrifically bad where you're going to hurt yourself it's just not 100 correct like like we talked about deadlifts if you're slightly rounding your back on a deadlift you're adding strength to dysfunction you're adding strength to a round back and so now that's since you're stronger there is the default

pattern for your body to take up you just diagnosed in my case yeah in my case since i was never ever ever ever ever allowed to round my back that is my default setting that really is where I'm strongest if I round in my back that means that that means I'm not going to be able to pick it up at all because if I can't do it in my strongest setting and I start around my back then I can't pick it up at all basically so if you can only do perfect reps even if that means you have to scale down whether it's a gymnastics regression yeah down like for something like kipping pull-ups or whether it's something like a deadlift where you have to elevate the bar because you don't have the mobility for it or whether it's something like just going with lighter weight

that's really the key to being able to do something perfect later on is is backing off in the off season doing everything perfectly perfectly correct that way when you go to do it in season and you have to pull from the floor or you have to get chest to bar you've done those perfect reps even if it if what if it was excuse me with lighter weight months ago yeah yeah i think chris is right we got to brand that so it's so so cool yeah but you're not reaching that idea of regression without it's got such a negative connotation we it's not because like an example of scaling up here where you're up here where you're still isn't uh it's kind of negative connotation so we gotta do something new you know up here where you're explosions and and boobs and reigning supreme you can be sort of advanced and a beginner at

the same time even the same lift like you're really strong in this half range of motion pull-up but you're not comfortable getting your chest you should go back and train in a quote beginner way because down here you're a beginner all this is not even trained down here down here your titties i think i think uh carl pally has a really good model for this where he he kind of meets in the middle ground where it's not 100 perfect all the time i think he if i remember i'm not quoting him necessarily 100 perfectly but i think this is what he has said before is that you want to go like for progression one two three four and five you want to go like 80 percent to toward progression number two where you can do something 80 correct and then make the leap up to the next

stage in that progression and then get that one like 80 there and then make the leap up and then once you get to the top then you go back and you start over yeah and then the second time you go through it uh you can hit that 100 mark on each one so that way you're not stuck you know using a band on pulps your whole life. Eventually you got to just kind of make the leap and do like a body weight pull-up or a body weight negative or something. And then when you go back down. You want to impress chicks in the gym and get laid sometime. Come on. Zach Evanesh talked about that too when we did something with him where he's talking about squat, bench, deadlift. Talked about like progressions on how

to train someone to do those things for the first time and do it well they also talked about you know after you can do those progressions and you're doing a squat bench or deadlift and a workout there's also an opportunity there to get better at those movements by going back and that progression going back in that progression and doing some of those movements as assistance work too so you know you even if you've mastered a muscle up or handstand push up or a snatch or something like that, or at least if you think you have, uh, now, you know, it might be good to go ahead and do some muscle ups, handstand pushups or snatches during your workout, but don't forget to go back and do that. Those progression movements as assistance work

to kind of build up, uh, those patterns and, and to be just stronger in those positions. I also like isometric holds for end range of motion. You program a lot of that, which I really, really like. After having done some of the stuff that you program before, I have become a really big advocate for doing that. If you're not strong overhead, doing handstand holds is fantastic. If you're not really good about getting your chin all the way over the bar, doing a chest to bar hold for time is a great idea easier on the joints too it gives your joints a break

yeah it is it's easier on your joints and you're you're training the part of the range of motion that you never really get to train otherwise if you do kipping pull-ups uh and nothing by kipping pull-ups and then now you have to do a chin-over-bar hang, that's going to be really tough for you because you never contract in that position. Novelty. Dude, what were those isometric intervals of doom that we were doing for a while there? It was like what you just said, but back then.

We were basically doing Tabatas of that, something similar to that, where we're doing like a... And that got rough. Alternate Tabata, static holds. Chest-to-bar L-sit holds combined with handstand holds for Tabata intervals for every

they got rough after a while we're building a progression so we're just i was seeing how far we could go yeah before it was just like people falling on their heads it was fun yeah we added another set to that we got progression each week yeah yeah and it was it was tough to to keep it going by by the time we ended we ended up up doing nine sets of it or something. We got Super Diesel, though. Check out these guns. Super Diesel. All right, I think it's time to wrap this show up. Make sure you go over to barbellstrug.com,

sign up for the newsletter, so we can send you updates about when we post podcasts, maybe when we go somewhere. Maybe you'll see the extra special nip slip pics I didn't put in. We'll be in California soon. Chris wants to go to Pixar. If you work at Pixar and you are a fan of the show

and you want to give Chris a tour, he would love it. Seriously, if you work at Pixar. Is that how you say tour? Tour. I will trade you some Pokemon cards. One more shout out to, actually, Wellbeing Coffee.

They sent some coffee and it was delicious. Nice of them. You got coffee here? Yeah, but it got drank up before you he shut up i'm not endorsing anything i didn't get any to taste it was delicious good they're doing good things uh over there so check it out i think it's wellbeing.com i think it's well-being.com so check those guys out okay actually i have one more thing too uh i put together a little a little checkbox list of of things that we talk about on the show.

And we're really curious to see exactly what you want to learn about on the show. We're always trying to get as much feedback as possible. That way we can talk about the things you want to hear about. And we don't have to talk about things that you're not interested in. I'm just going to talk about what I want to talk about, Doug. That's usually what happens. And people love it, Doug. If you were here and we play on the show.

But no, go to barbellbell shrug.com slash learn and there's going to be a little video explaining it but then it's just a bunch of little check boxes like check the box if you want to get bigger and stronger check the box if you want to learn how to compete or check the box if you you know want to get better at gymnastics or whatever it's got all the kind of crossfitty type things on there's like a dozen of them so just go check the boxes that you like and then crossfitty. I come. Do you have a checkbox? It's like, hey, I injured my shoulder two years ago in a car accident and I've been on the squat program, but now I'm thinking about changing to an endurance program.

We got that one. I like that. We should add that. That's a checkbox. That's right. So if you want to, you want to help us out, give us some feedback. That way we can improve the show and all the information that we put out on a weekly basis. Just go to barbershug.com way we can improve the show and all the information that we put out on a weekly basis.

Just go to barbershwag.com slash learn. Check those boxes and hit submit. We would really, really appreciate you doing that. It's cheesy. Yeah. Peace out.